THE BIRCH BLOG

Today was yet another beautiful day on Columbia Lake! We began the day with a sweet breakfast of French toast and honeydew melon, and then campers followed the usual morning schedule. After a day off from classes yesterday, swimmers and boaters were ready for a fresh attempt at their strokes and skills today. In Arts and Crafts, a new group of basket-makers began their projects. In sports, some campers played football while others went to the ropes course for team-building challenges.
Dinner was Texas Casserole, a dish of hamburger, rice, and tomatoes--delicious! Salad and bread were served on the side, and dessert was a rich chocolate cake with whipped icing and sprinkles--tasty!

The sun shone all afternoon, so everyone enjoyed their General Swim. During Activity Period, swim races--the last event of the track meet--were held. Deep water swimmers raced to the raft and back with the front crawl, intermediate swimmers raced with kick-boards, and aquarium had noodle races. Like yesterday's marathon, these races were optional, but many campers showed up to earn points for their team! Campers who chose not to race did other activities as usual, including volleyball, water quidditch, jumping off the tower, and working on bracelets and baskets.

Supper tonight was chicken patties, chips, and applesauce, with vanilla cake for dessert! After this hearty meal, the campers will be ready for tonight's Evening Program--Cops and Robbers! In this game, campers are each given a piece of paper with a number on it. Each number is given out twice, so there are camper pairs with the same number. The goal of the game, for the campers, is to find their number buddy, at which time they earn a point for their team and are safe. They do this by running around camp shouting out their number, hoping their pair will hear it, or that they will hear their number being called out by their pair. Meanwhile, the counselors will run around trying to tag campers and guess the color of their number paper. If the counselor guesses the right color, the camper loses the paper and must get a new number. Without their old number, their pair will unknowingly have no buddy. It is a tough but exciting game! After all the running around, everyone will sleep well tonight!